Legend of the Seeker

[muffinstud]

**Beware! A rant follows below!**

I yesterday I found out about this show, adapted from Terry Goodkind's book Wizard's First Rule (with bits taken from his other books in the same series). If you haven't read the books, or you're into an action-packed adventure, I highly recommend it.

But I read the book. It's one of my favorites. And believe you me, even with giving it leeway for changing up the story to fit into 1 hour chunks (which I think they've actually done a decent job with), it still doesn't do the story justice. One example:

In the beginning, there is a scene where the main character, Richard, is ambushed by many of his friends. They live in a land with no magic, and all of a sudden Richard is knee deep in magical troubles brought on by a woman and an old man. What do his friends do? They try to burn him alive as a witch. Sounds reasonable. Richard is about to hurt his own friends when the old man steps in, tosses some Wizard's Fire about in the air and shouts at the people. "Yes, I am a wizard! And guess what? I've just used my magic to take away that which you value most!" One of the villagers looks at him oddly. "You took away my milking cow?" The old man rolls his eyes. "No, not that. Think harder." One of the villagers gropes between his legs. "It's gone!" The old man smiles. "That!" A marvellous scene ensues, where all the men run around like chickens with their heads cut off, screaming "Put it back, put it back!" and their wives commenting "Not that much of a loss, really..." The main characters use the chaos to escape, where Richard asks the old wizard just how he removed...those. "I didn't actually do anything. Well, except for lying." Richard looks stumped. "You see, my boy, people are stupid. A lie can be just as good as magic, because people are too stupid to see through it, or they're afraid it really might be true."

Now, it's a fun little scene, but my point is that this little exchange is absolutely pivotal in the story. Why? It actually has an incredible influence on the outcome of the climactic ending of the story. You'll have to read or watch to find out. But my beef is this: the TV version CUTS THE SCENE OUT ENTIRELY. I would be perfectly fine with having a shorter, differently themed trick, but the trick has to still be in there. Trust me, if you've read it, this is absolutely pivotal to the story.

But if you want to watch the show, I still recommend it. It's magical, swashbuckling fun. And if the show decides Richard's sword should just be shiny, and not able to cut absolutely anything in half as long as he's angry, I can deal with it. I hope.

[Mitera Nikkou]

Around the time it was going to air, and while it aired, my mother kept pestering me to read the books. But I'm not much of a reader, so I didn't. ;p And then, as she watched and recorded it, she said that she was disappointed by it, which did less to inspire my interest in both the book and the TV series.

And who knows what bearing that has, as a response. But I'm less inclined to like something based on books, than the books themselves, since just about every TV/movie adaption I've every bore witness to have done little to do them justice. It's no different from video game and comic adaptions. I just don't understand America's interest in converting things to live-action. ;/

By the bye... What kind of magic are we talking about here, in this series?

[muffinstud]

The magic system in this universe is a little different. Here's a very summed up explanation.

The magic used by the natural world is called Additive Magic. You can only use it to add things onto another. For example, he adds heat to the air to create balls of fire, or he adds more material to a knife's edge just so as to make it sharper. He cannot, however, remove anything. An example of this is when he makes a beard for himself for a disguise. In order to remove the disguise, he has to shave. He cannot magically remove the beard, since it would subtract something.

Which leads to Subtractive Magic, used by the Underworld. It can only be used to take away. It is looked upon as being evil, since the only creatures and wizards that can use it are associated with death, the undead and other unholy and unpleasant things. The main antagonist, Darken Rahl, is such a wizard. He uses his magic on several occasions to lessen the amount of blood people have in their bodies and to cast subtractive wards around his guards that cancel out additive spells.

It's a simple system, yet a lot of things can be done with it.

[Mitera Nikkou]

No conversion magic? Seems kind of odd to only have things added from nowhere, and taken away to nowhere.

A game called Kartia suddenly comes to mind. There are these card-like things that, depending on what they were made of, and what was inscribed upon them, made something appear from seemingly nowhere (magic, phantoms, equipment, beverages, et cetera). But later on they find out that all of it is summoned from somewhere, so you end up with a conservation of energy effect.

But, yes, as it is it's fairly simple. A nice concept without logical baggage to weigh it down. ;p